the harriman institute at columbia university SUMMER 2014 The Dancers The Harriman and Russian Ballet Bosnian Spring Signals New Possibilities How to Read Chekhov Ukraine’s Third Attempt Gary Shteyngart on Little Failure Harriman Magazine is published biannually by the Harriman Institute. Managing Editor: Ronald Meyer Editor: Masha Udensiva-Brenner Comments, suggestions, or address changes may be e-mailed to Masha Udensiva-Brenner at [email protected]. Cover photo by Nina Alovert: Vera Arbuzova in Red Giselle, choreography by Boris Eifman (1997) Photo, right, by Nina Alovert: Yulia Makhalina, Studio, Mariinsky Theatre (1992) Design and Production: Columbia Creative Harriman Institute Timothy Frye, Director Alexander Cooley, Deputy Director for Social Sciences Programming Kimberly Marten, Deputy Director for Development Alan Timberlake, Deputy Director for Humanities Programming Alla Rachkov, Associate Director Harriman Institute Columbia University 420 West 118th Street New York, NY 10027 Tel: 212-854-4623 Fax: 212-666-3481 For the latest news and updates about the Harriman Institute, visit harriman.columbia.edu. Stay connected through Facebook and Twitter! www.twitter.com/HarrimanInst www.facebook.com/TheHarrimanInstitute A FROM THE DIRECTOR he crisis in Ukraine and protests in Bosnia-Herzegovina (BiH) have made this calendar year an exceptionally eventful one for our region. This issue profiles T Alexander Vershbow, Russian Institute alumnus, deputy secretary general of NATO, and former U.S. ambassador to Russia, South Korea, and NATO, who provided a thoughtful perspective on the crisis in Ukraine in his April 2014 speech titled, “A New Strategic Reality in Europe.” In addition, Mykalo Riabchuk, a former Harriman Institute Petro Jacyk Visiting Professor, draws on various scholarly and journalistic arguments to analyze the sources of the Maidan protests and Ukraine’s deeper struggle to balance Eastern and Western influences. Turning to the political unrest in BiH, Tanya Domi, adjunct professor of international and public affairs, and Jasmin Mujanovic, visiting scholar at the Harriman Institute, find hope in the creation of grassroots popular assemblies to address deep political cleavages. In these challenging times, historical perspective is in high demand and, too often, short supply. In a profile of the late Peter H. Juviler, professor emeritus of political science at Barnard College and cofounder of Barnard’s human rights program, we see what it was like to travel to the USSR in 1956 as one of the first U.S. graduate students to visit the region after the Stalin years. Tom Kent, adjunct professor of journalism and of international and public affairs, who was a correspondent in Moscow during the Brezhnev years, reflects on reasons for the survival of Brezhnev’s failing regime, giving us a taste of life during the last years of the Soviet Union. Then, on a more humorous note, the award-winning author, Gary Shteyngart, a Harriman faculty member, discusses his new memoir, Little Failure, and what it was like to come to the United States from Leningrad as a seven-year-old. We were fortunate to host Shteyngart for a reading and discussion this spring, and you can find photographs of the event accompanying the interview (to watch the video, go here: harriman.columbia.edu/event/reading-and-conversation-gary-shteyngart). We also have a special treat. Last fall, we had the pleasure of mounting Nina Alovert’s “The Dancers,” a retrospective of her photographs of Russian ballet in the Soviet Union and the United States from the 1960s to the twenty-first century. You can find some of these photographs within the pages of this magazine. We’ve also profiled Stephen Reidy, a former Russian Institute student who currently sits on the board of the New York City Ballet. And, last but not least in the ballet section, we have a piece on the prominent ballet historian and Harriman faculty member Lynn Garafola, who won fellowships from both the Guggenheim Foundation and the New York Public Library’s Cullman Center for the year 2013–14 to support research for her biography of Bronislava Nijinska. In addition, Cathy Popkin of Columbia’s Slavic Department recently published the new Norton Critical Edition of Anton Chekhov’s Selected Stories. We are thrilled to reprint excerpts from her Introduction as well as a story from the collection. We hope you enjoy this issue and look forward to hearing your feedback and ideas for future stories. Timothy Frye Director, Harriman Institute HARRIMAN MAGAZINE | 1 SUMMER 2014 / VOLUME 2, NUMBER 1 32 8 Alexander Vershbow in Profile COVER STORY By Ronald Meyer The Dancers: The Harriman and Russian Ballet Deputy secretary general of NATO Alexander Vershbow began building his By Ronald Meyer expertise in arms control and security A look at the Harriman Institute’s ties to Russian ballet, for many the while attending a Russian Institute graduate quintessential Russian art form, through the eyes of photographer Nina seminar taught by Marshall Shulman. He credits his expertise on Russia and Eastern Alovert; former Russian Institute student Stephen Reidy, who now sits Europe, gained at Columbia, for equipping on the board of New York City Ballet; and distinguished Harriman him for the broader responsibilities he faculty member and dance historian Lynn Garafola. shouldered as director of Soviet Union affairs and U.S. ambassador to Russia. The Dancers: A Photo Lynn Garafola and Her Journey Exhibition by Nina Alovert as a Dance Historian Peter H. Juviler, 1926–2013 By Masha Udensiva-Brenner On the life and work of the the Harriman Institute’s 2011 Alumnus of the Year and cofounder of Barnard’s Human Rights Program—the first of its kind in the Baryshnikov/Balanchine: United States. A Profile of Stephen K. Reidy 2 | HARRIMAN MAGAZINE CONTENTS 22 16 52 Russia in the Late Years of Soviet Ukraine’s Third Attempt In Memoriam Rule: Why Did Citizens Comply with By Mykola Riabchuk a Failing Regime? An examination of the Euromaidan protests By Thomas Kent and what they tell us about the current Thomas Kent, adjunct associate professor situation in Ukraine. of journalism and of international and Alumni & Postdoc Notes public affairs, was a correspondent for the Associated Press in Moscow from 1976 to 1978 and from 1979 to 1981. In this piece he answers an often-asked question: Why did Russians put up with the privations of Anton Chekhov’s Selected Stories life in the late years of Soviet rule? Edited by Cathy Popkin Giving to Harriman How to Read Chekhov,” from Cathy Popkin’s Introduction to the Norton Critical Edition of Chekhov’s Selected Stories, followed by Katherine Tiernan O’Connor’s translation of “A Little Game.” Bosnian Spring Signals New Possibilities for Bosnia-Herzegovina By Jasmin Mujanovic and Tanya L. Domi Can Bosnia-Herzegovina leave behind the corruption and discontent it has faced Gary Shteyngart’s Little Failure during these past two decades? By Masha Udensiva-Brenner The author discusses life as a Soviet immigrant in the 1980s and the challenges of writing. HARRIMAN MAGAZINE | 3 The Kremlin Embankment, Moscow (photo by Dmitry Azovtsev) BY RONALD MEYER ALEXANDER VERSHBOW IN PROFILE 4 | HARRIMAN MAGAZINE PROFILES n April 2014, Alexander Vershbow (Russian Institute ’76), issues”—including missile defense cooperation, nonstrategic nuclear deputy secretary general of NATO, delivered a speech on “A weapons, and military transparency. New Strategic Reality in Europe” to the twenty-first International Vershbow traces his expertise in arms control back to a graduate I Conference on Euro-Atlantic Security (Krakow, Poland) that seminar at Columbia taught by Marshall Shulman, whom he opens with the statement, “For twenty years, the security of the characterizes as “one of the all-time great experts on Soviet foreign Euro-Atlantic region has been based on the premise that we do policy.” At the time of Vershbow’s tenure at the Russian Institute not face an adversary to our east. This premise is now in doubt.” in the mid-1970s, the subject of arms control was relatively new— Vershbow has devoted much of his distinguished career to the goal the first Strategic Arms Limitation Agreements (SALT) were signed of building an inclusive, integrated European security system that in 1972, amid fears that advances in U.S. and Soviet technology not only put an end to Cold War divisions, including opening would outpace the ability of negotiators to produce verifiable agree- NATO to new members in Eastern Europe, but also provided a ments to limit the nuclear arms race. In his paper for Shulman’s central role for a democratic Russia. As Vershbow points out, how- class, Vershbow examined the emerging cruise missile, whose tiny ever, “Russia’s recent actions against Ukraine have been a wake-up size and versatility made it difficult to verify with satellite imagery. call for everyone in the Euro-Atlantic community. They follow a The paper, which argued for unilateral renunciation of the system in pattern of behavior that we already observed in Transnistria, South order to save the arms control process, appeared in Foreign Affairs Ossetia and Abkhazia. The pattern is to influence, destabilize and in the summer of 1976, just before Vershbow joined the U.S. even intervene in countries on Russia’s borders, to prolong ‘frozen’ Foreign Service. The fledgling Carter administration did not adopt conflicts by supporting corrupt, separatist groups, and to thereby Vershbow’s radical proposal, but the article did pave the way for him deny sovereign states the ability to choose their own security to work on nuclear arms issues in his first State Department assign- arrangements and to chart their own political destinies.” Vershbow, ment, which included several stints as an adviser to the SALT talks an expert on issues related to missile defense and nuclear arms, in Geneva (a rare experience for a first-tour officer) and facilitated notes in the same speech that even before the recent crisis, the a Moscow assignment for his second tour.